Giving Compass' Take:

• The Hechinger Report profiles formerly homeless moms from Louisville, Kentucky, who — despite much adversity — now have a graduation rate that exceeds that of their single, childless, more affluent peers.

•  The Family Scholar House program in Louisville helped many of these women get back on their feet with stable housing, but also with academic preparedness. Which national organizations are following such a model?

• Also, be sure you read what funders are saying when it comes to racial equity and homelessness.

The single, formerly homeless mothers living in Family Scholar House apartments are used to seeing faces drawn down with pity or judgment when they tell their stories. Pregnant at 15. Bruised and beaten by a boyfriend. Kicked out of school. Living in a car or a windowless basement with an infant.

But when these women speak about their lives, their eyes rarely fall to the floor, and their faces don’t mirror that unspoken expectation of shame. It may be the 3.0 GPA they’re earning at a Kentucky university, or the nursing degree just one semester away, or the fact that their first-graders sleep well and are learning to read.

Single moms have one of the lowest college graduation rates in the country, which has been linked to a grinding, constricting poverty that impedes their children’s ability to escape as well. But these formerly homeless women (and a handful of men) in Louisville have a college graduation rate that exceeds that of their single, childless, more affluent peers. With a creative use of the Section 8 housing program, wall-to-wall counseling and a consciously cultivated perseverance, this community of women has defied the odds. And now, cities around the country are beginning to explore whether they can do the same thing.

“If you meet two or three of people’s challenges, that’s good, but if they have 17 challenges, you’re not going to get very far,” said Cathe Dykstra, president and CEO of the growing program. “It’s like dominos — the things they need all lean against each other, and if one goes down, it knocks down everything else.”

Read the full article about the formerly homeless single moms who graduated college by Meredith Kolodner at The Hechinger Report.